


five moments of an orbit (and one after)

by Silvereye



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: 5 Things, F/F, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 12:25:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17662613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvereye/pseuds/Silvereye
Summary: Five times Renée Minkowski and Isabel Lovelace don't kiss (and a sixth where they do). Plus, trusty roll of duct tape, Captain Tereshkova and all the grace of a Soyuz landing.Canon-compliant, spoilers for the entire show.





	five moments of an orbit (and one after)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freudiancascade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freudiancascade/gifts).



> Thank you for giving me a perfect reason to write about these two. I tried to make this not-angsty and failed only slightly, I hope. :D
> 
> There are passing mentions of blood and medical stuff, but nothing too explicit. The dialogue in sections two and five is pretty much direct from the scripts.

**1\. Day 659 of Hephaestus mission**

"Tachycardia," Hilbert says and for a moment Minkowski's stomach sinks. But the EKG's beeping has not changed so what...

"You still have saline, right?" Captain Lovelace says, shaking Hilbert's hand off her wrist. Her voice has that crisp rhythm, setting each word down like a point of reference in a starchart. It's somehow wrong this time, too precise. Like she's acting. No, like she's acting _badly_.

"Yes," Hilbert concedes.

"Which _can_ be used for bulking out blood volume but this doesn't do _shit_ for Officer Eiffel, who's already into Class Four hemorrhage territory," Lovelace says patiently, looking at Eiffel instead of Hilbert. Medbay's lighting has never done anyone favours, but she looks too ashen even so.

"I do not need two hemorrhage patients."

"You can't afford not to. Keep the saline ready."

Minkowski is no medical officer. She can do basic math, however. If Eiffel is _this_ far gone and the only donor on station is _that_ much smaller than him in bulk _then_ there is no way the said donor does not end up with a mildly inadvisable degree of blood loss herself. Lovelace doesn't do things by halves.

"Captain-" Minkowski starts. She's not certain what she's going to say.

"It's okay," Lovelace answers and attempts something like a smile.

Minkowski could kiss her. That's probably adrenaline talking. Right? Right.

* * *

**2\. Day 782 of Hephaestus Mission**

"There. You punched a bad guy. Feel better? Can we move on now?" Hilbert asks, making no attempt to wipe away the blood that is – thankfully – already starting to frost over on his face.

Lovelace can't, though, can she? There's no moving on from the fact that out of everyone on Hephaestus - Minkowski and Hera and Eiffel - back when - and Hilbert - out of them all Hilbert is most like her. He's a walking horrorshow, true, and he easily has twice or thrice her kill list, but when he starts going on and _on_ about doing what needs to be done Lovelace sees nothing but herself. Through a glass, darkly.

She can apologize and say she's made mistakes, something that Hilbert has probably not done in his life, but that's not going to change it. She's still a monster. A monster that the crew of Hephaestus will never accept, not like they've accepted their pet _murderer_.

Then Commander Minkowski says: "But first every single one of you needs to have it out with me" and Isabel Lovelace thinks: oh, fuck. I'm not the only one. I'm not the only commander on this station. If she weren't already half-frozen the relief would make her stagger. If she had realized it in any other context she might float over to Minkowski and kiss her.

Unfortunately, Minkowski continues with the part where their station is falling apart on a rather swift schedule and Lovelace thinks oh fuck for completely different reasons.

* * *

**3\. Day 1081 of the Hephaestus Mission**

Lovelace has seen and done many things during her long tenure on Hephaestus, but walking a duct tape-visored Minkowski towards the airlock with Colonel Kepler in an ion storm is new. Fortunately.

Duct tape has enough tensile strength to hold polycarbonate together, but it does jack all against radiation, unlike the gold coating on spacesuit visors. Every ion gust is a burst of very angry particles straight to Minkowski's face and there's nothing Lovelace can do to shield her further. Nothing to do but walk, and walk, and wait, every time the wind decides to pick up.

But they make it to the airlock, and Minkowski tears off her helmet and Lovelace holds Minkowski's hands that are visibly shaking even through the thick spacesuit gloves.

"We'll try again in ten minutes," Kepler says and Lovelace can't help but look appalled. It's not that she thought the bastard _cared_ , it's simply that Minkowski's face is still roughly the hue of an A-class star and...

The bastard in question enters the station proper. Minkowski and Lovelace are left floating in the airlock all by themselves.

"I can't do this," Minkowski whispers.

"I'll be there," Lovelace says, because to say _you can_ would be a travesty. "Me and my trusty roll of duct tape."

Minkowski laughs, wetly, like she might start crying any second now and Lovelace wants to kiss her forehead. But Lovelace is still in her own helmet and there is no time in Kepler's busy schedule to remove it and then get both Minkowski and Lovelace spaceworthy. So she hugs Minkowski, taking care to not rub her own probably-ionized helmet against Minkowski's hair and tries really hard to not think about all the things that still must be done.

* * *

**4\. Day 1083 of the Hephaestus Mission**

The thing about Lovelace is, when she's in motion - no. When she's alive - no. When she's _going_ , up and in possession of all her faculties she looks much larger than she actually is. Mass is no obstacle in the weightlessness of Hephaestus, but when Minkowski has heaved the now-unconscious Lovelace up to her shoulders on a reasonable approximation of fireman's carry she notices how - well, how tiny Lovelace actually is. Minkowski pretty much does not have to think about bumping Lovelace into hatches or handholds as she makes her way through the station.

Lovelace's cabin is unchanged since neither she nor Eiffel could bear to clean it out. Minkowski tucks Lovelace into the sleeping bag, makes sure that the straps that bind the bag to the wall are holding fast, because floating off to the middle of the room while deep asleep is _not_ pleasant and then hesitates. She can't exactly linger. Someone has to deal with Kepler.

But god damn it all -

"The general," Lovelace says in the same chipper, too-fast, alien - no. Strange. In the same strange voice. "Here comes the general, but no, that cannot be right, I meant Captain Tereshkova, no that is also not right, the Prince Charming? No. Close, but no cigar. Captain Charming. _Commander_ Charming, yes, that's not correct but it's also not wrong."

What.

"Captain Lovelace?" Minkowski asks, and then, even more quietly: "Lovelace? ...Isabel?"

Lovelace has already moved past that, staccato-stitching her fragmented memories together. There's a terrible familiar quality to her sleeptalking, kind of like the hypnagogic hallucinations that Minkowski gets when she's too tired to fall asleep - made of components that are _true_ , but put together not quite _right_.

Minkowski floats closer and tucks a strand of Lovelace's hair behind her ear, futile as the gesture is. Then she makes a dignified and in no way flustered exit.

God damn it, if only Lovelace were awake already. So she could - something. Something.

* * *

**5\. Day 1218 of the Hephaestus Mission**

Lovelace has never felt so helpless, probably not even when her craft went over the Red Line for the first time. Which the Sol node is also going to do unless Jacobi can torpedo it. Lovelace knows _she_ would have no chance. She's good enough to be a spotter - always had a knack for calculating angles and can adjust them according to the first time the node passed its apastron near Hephaestus. Nothing in space is unpredictable, as long as it only has to answer to Newtonian physics and Einstein for extra credit.

Torpedoes, however, are skittish things and she has not Jacobi's talent for them.

So: Lovelace has never felt so helpless. She can do targeting and pray to whoever listens.

"Come left seven. Up nine and one. Locked," she says.

The problem with Jacobi is that he's blunt, but under the somewhat affable directness there are entirely too many fucking layers. Lovelace really does not know whether he's going to fuck up the shot intentionally or not. She wonders if he knows himself.

He certainly would kill Pryce and he would sacrifice Kepler. Eiffel and Minkowski? Possibly. Maybe. But that's thinking like a human being and Jacobi has some aptitude for the dispassionate logic of objects in space. A star or a planet or a non-AI space station doesn't care. It simply does the inevitable.

"Come right one plus one, down seven minus one, and locked."

She should not have waited so long. There always seemed to be something: Minkowski's self-doubt, Eiffel's... stupid special episode and reckless fall into the star, the part where Lovelace was Minkowski's commanding officer, the reverse and then, finally, Cutter and Pryce arriving with the inevitability of a king tide. Always something, but now Minkowski is out _there_ and Lovelace is _here_ and may never get a chance to kiss Minkowski like she should have done a while ago.

* * *

**6\. Day 2 after the end of Hephaestus Mission**

Minkowski hits consciousness with all the grace of a Soyuz landing. For a moment the terror is overwhelming - they're going to go over the Red Line in ten minutes and she has to make sure - then her stomach really makes its displeasure known and she realizes someone is holding her.

That's nice.

But they still have to get off Hephaestus and -

"Easy," Lovelace is saying. "It's okay. We're okay."

"Where?" Minkowski asks, because that is not the lab in which she passed out.

The things Lovelace says are almost too enormous to take in: it has been two days and Hephaestus is gone and Minkowski herself lost a lot of blood. Lovelace doesn't let go, however, and her arms are warm and strong even if she herself is a little too ashen in a familiar way, a little too drawn around the eyes in a less familiar and honestly upsetting manner.

"We made it," Minkowski says, her voice half-drifting into a question.

"Yeah."

"We made it," Minkowski repeats and then she raises one lead-heavy arm and puts it around Lovelace's neck and kisses her. It's ungraceful and breathless and perfect.


End file.
